The Hills in Half Light

Or will we be lost forever? In the silence of the last breath Not taken The blue sweep of your arm like a dancer Clowning, in wrinkled pajamas, Across the sky the abrupt Brief zigzag of a jay... All night the whiteness And all day. Once we have been lifted up Into empty morning like ice In the darkness of these white fields Neither the ghost tracks of skis Nor steel skates will wake us Where are we looking for each other, separated On the opposite hillside I see you Miles away from me, a dot Of faint color reddening, small bruised warmth Opening its cranberry mouth and saying, What are you saying? * Under a cold blanket An immense loneliness stretches In every direction with no fences. A few sticks tweak the crusted snow: Thin remnants of an army Of lost soldiers. I see footsteps ahead of me but whose And where will they lead me, parallel Or converging? Is it not possible there will be one jet trail That will not vanish, Two phantom ribbons unfolding That will not feather themselves away? * Wrapped in our white parkas In what shifting laminations, snowflakes That mean nothing, transparent eyes spitting, What glacier will we choose to lie on, In what igloo rest Barely breathing, in an air pocket Just below the surface Rustling beneath blizzards Where is your foot, most beautiful With blue toenails I will be looking for it always Wherever it is, next to me In the darkness Of rumpled white sheets, Pale siftings, clouds Sudden scarves of ourselves gusting Loose, sandpapery as snow lifting In what chill citadel of ice crystals Will I find you?